The total number of mobile applications available across the top smart-phone platforms in the world is quickly approaching one million. Many of the initial mobile applications were primarily created for entertainment purposes. However, as mobile application usage increases, the subject matter of the mobile applications has also changed. Mobile applications may be designed to improve lives, increase productivity, disseminate news, predict weather, and even provide crop data in places like rural India.
Industry distribution of mobile applications is growing faster than the rate of sales of digital music, which used to be the undisputed leader in online sales. The number of mobile applications is likely to continue growing, due to increased smart-phone usage around the world, and the availability of toolkits and frameworks that make it easier to develop new mobile applications. Known application search tools may allow a user to select a user application from the large number of available user applications. Additionally, the known search tools may be used to sort user applications based on the general popularity associated with a particular user application. Nevertheless, the selection of the user application may be very time consuming and inefficient, and the known search tools may not locate the user application that is best suited for the user.